A lady named Ester White bought the flour and took Dorp and Sam home with her, along with sugar, cooking oil and other ingredients for a yellow chiffon cake. The county fair was due, and Mrs. White always baked something to show in the fair. She didn’t always get a ribbon but enjoyed the process and the visiting that came with the fair. 
On the way home, the groceries jostled around in the back of the pickup truck, and Sam began to wonder why he was there.

“Mr. Dorp, if flour is dry in the bag, what are we doing her­­­­­­­­­­e?” 

“Ah, nuances of human languages. Dry is a relative term, Sam. Remember that land can receive up to 10 inches of rain a year and still be considered a desert? Wheat flour is commonly 14% water. Baked bread contains about 38% moistu­­­­re.” 

“Wait!” interrupted Sam. A loaf of bread is over one-third water? Wow.” 

“That’s right Sam. And the water in baked bread contains two types of water: free water and organic water. Free water can be mechanically pressed out of a loaf, but organic water cannot be squeezed out. Most can be baked out, for scientific analysis, but bread and flour in every form contains water. This will be your first time through an oven. Let’s see if we are released from the cake in the oven, or if we are taken to the county fair. And we’ll see if a trip through an oven is any more fun than a trip through a horse.” 

“Huh! I can guess the answer to that. If water can’t feel pain, then the oven will be much easier. At least I’ll be sanitary when we come out. I’ve been to a fair before. I’d like to go again. Cotton candy, corndogs, big cows, colorful chickens, rodeos, tractor pulls, demolition derby, the Ferris wheel and tilt-a-whirl. Last time I went to the fair, I ate a foot-long chilidog just before the tilt-a-whirl ride and threw up. Wow. Let’s go!” 

“Pull back a bit cowboy” Dorp cautioned “First, let’s see how the oven works out for us. Second, a water molecule cannot eat a corndog. Even if we get to the fair, you won’t be eating anything.” 

“Oh. Drat! I forgot I can’t eat,” said Sam. 

Mrs. White rose early in the morning and did her chores and then began to make the yellow chiffon cake for the fair. 

She gathered eggs from her hen house, separated the yolks from the whites, mixed the yolks with the other wet ingredients, mixed the flour, and other dry ingredients, and then beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff. She then mixed the wet and dry ingredients, finally folded in the stiff egg whites, and slooped the mixture into an angel food cake pan. 

“Wow!” said Sam. “There’s a lot of water in this cake. “ 

“Yes, the flour is 14% water, the egg whites are 88% water, the yolks are 48% water; the vanilla extract contains 35% water, 

and the added water is 100% water, there is a fair amount of water in it.” 

“The cake for the fair has a fair amount of water in it. Get it? 

Wait, have you noticed how many people are named after colors? 

She is Mrs. White; there are people named Black, Brown, Grey and Green. 
Why don’t we hear name like Red, Yellow, Orange and Purple?” 

"Actually Sam, all those names are in human language, but sometimes in different forms. 

Immigrants from the British Isles carried over names such as Blue and Reid.” 

“Hey! Reid was Grandma Tessie’s last name before she got married, but I said ‘Red.’” 
“Sam, Reid is the Scottish word for Red, and the last name ‘Orrin” is derived from the name ‘Orange.’” 

“Oh.” 

Dorp continued, “And ’Wong’ comes from the Chinese word ‘huang’, which means yellow.” 

“Wow! Sam replied. ”Did I get that all wong.”

 
“How did I see that coming?” Dorp asked. “Europeans started using surnames, or last names about 1200 AD, when royalty began taxing people, and needed to keep better track of their people. Royalty also explains why you don’t hear the name ‘Purple’ very often. Purple was a color reserved for royalty, no one else could wear it, and it was a ‘sacred’ color, so to speak. But Orange is a name that seems to have originated in the Netherlands. Now, orange you sorry you made a bad name joke? That was very wong of you. Now, off we go into the oven; 350° for 60 minutes.” 

As they sat in the oven baking, Sam piped up, “I have a joke; how do gingerbread men make their beds?” 

“I don’t know, Sam. How do gingerbread men make their beds? 

With cookie sheets. Ha! Anyway, we use flour to bake bread and we use flour to make cakes. 

Why does bread and cake taste different?” 

Dorp explained, “While flour is the main ingredient in both recipes, the secondary ingredients make the difference in taste and texture. Breads use flour, water, some type of fat, milk and a bit of sugar. Cakes use flour, water, also fats, a lot of sugar and they also use eggs. Most breads and cakes use some types of leavening agent. And pancakes are made like cakes, without as much sugar or leavening.” 

“What is a leavening agent?” Sam asked. Dorp said, “Leavening is what makes breads and cakes inflate with air bubbles; like a tire, so they rise. Yeast, baking powder and baking soda all work as leavening agents. They make baked goods lighter and fluffier. There are three types of leavening agents, Sam. The first two work on the same principle as the volcano in your science project, which creates bubbles through the mixing of an alkali and an acid. The first type, baking powder, contains an alkaline and an acid, both in powder form. When they go into a wet cake mix, the water activates them, and they form tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide. Baking soda is an alkaline that relies on added acid, such as buttermilk, to make the bubbles. Yeast is a bacteria that when fed sugar and water, emits gas bubbles in bread and cakes products. That’s why they rise.” 

“Wait a minute, Mr. Dorp! How does yeast make gas and put the air bubbles in our bread? 

That sounds to me like the yeast is farting. Is the yeast sitting in the tub of dough and farting?” 

“Sam, I believe that is called flatulence and leavening with CO2 is different than human flatulence.” 

“Still. Bacteria flat-ulence is a leavening agent? Shouldn’t it be called round-ulence if it’s a bubble? "Asked Sam. “Does my mom know this? Does she know she feeds me food with farts in it? And she knowingly eats food with farts in it? Then why does the school feed me bread and then send me to the principal’s office if I fart during geography? Wow! What injustice!” 

“Oh Sam," Dorp said. “I knew this conversation wouldn’t end well.” 

“Wait; I have a cake joke. A man went to the doctor. The doctor said: ‘What’s the matter?’ The man said: ‘I get heartburn every time I eat birthday cake. How do I fix that, Doc?’ 

The doctor said, ‘Blow out the candles first.’” 

The cooking time was up, and Mrs. White pulled the cake out of the oven, and stuck an old soda bottle in the neck of the cake pan and turned it upside down. Thus, the cake sat upside-down to cool, so it wouldn’t collapse. After cooling, Mrs. White took the cake off the bottle and freed the cake from the pan. She cut the top of the cake off smooth and turned it over so it would be the bottom of the cake. 

Sam asked Dorp: “So, how many people enter stuff into the fair like Mrs. White?” 

Dorp calculated before replying: “With the animal entries, field and garden production, domestic arts, craft and artisan works, talent and performance competitions, this fair sees over 4,000 entries each year. Texas County has a population of about 20,000 people. One family of four might have a dozen entries, with the father entering his ear corn and his grandfather’s restored antique tractor; mom entering her canned corn relish and an apple pie, and with the children entering various 4-H and FFA classes as well as talent contests.” 

“County fair time must be crazy for country people then, hmm? Why were county fairs started anyway?” 

“Sam, agricultural fairs, now called county fairs, began in the 1840s as a way for companies to sell things to farmers. 

Fairs were one way for farmers to learn new farming methods other than trial and error.” 

“What is trial and error?” Sam interrupted. 

Dorp smiled at Sam’s curiosity. 
“Trial and error is learning after you’ve done something instead of learning before or during. 

Learning before doing is like your dad showing you the safe way to pull a nail and then doing it yourself. 

Learning during doing is seeing how a cake is made and helping during the process. If Mrs. White’s granddaughters were here, that’s what might happen. 

Trial and error is learning after doing, without an experienced teacher, and seeing the good or bad consequences of your actions. Do you remember the time you put a half a bottle of dish soap in the washing machine?” 

“That wasn’t trial and error,” Sam recalled. “That was trial and terror. Mom was upset! I had to clean up the mess and then was totally grounded for a week; a week, mind you for a little bit of soap.” 

“To continue Sam, trial and error is the least efficient way to learn. However, innovators must rely on trial and error to test their theories. The Wright brothers, Jonas Salk, Thomas Edison and other scientific leaders understood that trial and error had to be their teacher because they went into uncharted territory.” 

“Oh, if the Wright brothers had failed, would they have been the ‘Wrong Brothers’?” 

“Perhaps so, Sam.” Dorp replied. “But they tried until they got it Wright. 

Back to agricultural fairs. Many new farming implements were invented by farmers who took their ideas to their local blacksmith and made a better way to do things. John Deere himself was a blacksmith who designed a plow that worked better that what existed at the time. Companies were formed to make and sell these new products to farmers, and agricultural fairs were a logical means of reaching the farmers. This same concept is still used in marketing efforts today, especially in big cities, through expositions, home shows, job fairs and the like.” 

“At the county fair,” Dorp continued, “Machinery demonstrations soon turned into competitions like plowing contests. 

Food was a part of the scene as soon as the fairs began, with local churches and grangers feeding the fairgoers. 

Entertainers and shysters discovered the county fairs, which drew town people too. Beginning in the early 1900s, farm children were encouraged to show the animals they worked with on the farm. County fairs are nearly as important to rural people as any other holiday or ritual that brings people together to renew acquaintanceships.” 

“Wait,” Sam said. “You called the fair a holiday and a ritual.” 

“It is, Sam. The county fair is a very local, yet very universal and significant event to rural Americans, 

and ranks up there with religious and national holidays. 

Well Sam, we have been frosted, so to speak, and it is time to go to the fair.”

Sam spoke up: “Wait, before we forget the washing machine debacle, another question about soap. If we wash with clean water, what is the purpose of soap anyway?” 

“Sam, remember when you tried to leave our dorp, but couldn’t because of surface tension? Now think about all the times you worked on your bike and had to wash your dirty hands. Why did you use soap instead of just water?” 

“The water by itself wouldn’t clean, Mr. Dorp.” 

“That is correct. We water molecules keep to ourselves. You know how water beads-up on side of an airplane, even traveling at 500 miles an hour. And you’ve seen how hard it is to clean without soap. Most dirty things contain some type of oil or grease. Soap is called a surfactant. Surfactants help water become friendly with oil-based dirt. Surfactants are molecules of chemicals formed in a long chemical string. Surfactants help water bind to oils. Mrs. White has a piece of lye soap in her cupboard that her grandmother made 75 years ago. It is made of lye and rendered animal fat. The lye is a strong alkali that turns the animal fat into surfactants that clean dirty clothes and skin. "

Sam was confused. “How did her grandma know all that chemistry?” 

“She didn’t.” Dorp replied. She just knew what worked by observation, trial and error.Human history is full of instances of humans using things they can’t begin to understand.  And ask your parents how an automatic transmission in their van works. They don’t know; yet they drive their car." 

The cake was put into an airtight container, then into a cardboard box wrapped in bath towels to keep it safe from sliding. 

This time, Dorp and Sam rode in the seat of the pickup. They drove through Guymon from the Whites’ farm, east of town and went to the fairgrounds on the west end of town. The fairground was busy with people bringing their entries to the fair. Soon enough, they were registered, unpacked, and sat on a table in the Domestic Arts Hall, waiting to be judged. 

”Man, water spends a lot of time doing nothing,” Sam said with exasperation.

 
“We can do nothing except some form of energy propels us. Heat evaporates us, gravity pulls us; wind pushes us…” 

“And horses poop us. By the way, if we go to the rodeo, I’m staying away from the horse trough. 

I’ve had enough of Old Paint for a while.”

Things were busy at the fair. The carnival workers were finishing setting up for the day and testing their rides. Those with noses could smell popcorn. This made Sam unhappy because he could see the food, but couldn’t smell it, and he sure wouldn’t be able to eat it. 

“A trip to the county fair and I can’t eat corndogs or cotton candy. Woe is me! Wait, I have a county fair joke. 

Two girls went to the fair, named Cindy and Splash. They found a machine that gave both the customer’s eye color and other info. Splash stepped on the machine and put in a quarter. It spit out a piece of paper. She asked what the paper said. 

Cindy read the paper. “It says: ‘You are charming and easy to get along with.’ And look here, Splash, it lied about your eye color too!” 

Conditions were right for Dorp and Sam to stay at the fair a while. They spent a couple of days drifting about on mild breezes, moving about on collars and hair ribbons, and sitting as dew on the grass in the early morning. 

They saw the talent show and watched them crown the fair queen. Sam liked the tractor pull. 

On one trip through one of the exhibition halls, he commented on the ribbons. 

“A lot of ribbons. What do the colors mean?” 

Dorp said: 
“Purple: Grand Champion, or Best of Show
Blue: First Place
Red: Second Place
Yellow: Third Place
White: Fourth Place” 

Sam noticed, “I see people who entered quilts with white ribbons, and kids in pie-eating contests that have blue ribbons. 

I know it takes a lot more work to make a quilt than it takes to eat a pie. What gives? 

How is that fair? If I were a newspaper reporter, I would write a column: ‘Unfair at the Fair.’” 

Dorp answered, “Each category of events has its own winners. Granted, it takes far more skill to make a quilt than eat a pie. Still, there is a best pie-eater at the fair. Besides, Sam, everyone knows the difference of the amount of work involved in each event, and they give credit where credit is due. Are you jealous that you can’t enter the pie eating contest?” 

“You know it, Mr. Dorp. There’s Mrs. White at the funnel cake booth. She’s telling another woman that she won a red ribbon on her cake. Grandpa Ed says that when a woman wins a ribbon at the fair, the whole family eats better for a couple of weeks. And if she wins no ribbon, her husband better take her out for supper to make her feel better.” 

“Has your grandpa had to do that many times? “ 

“Not often. Grandma Tessie is pretty good at all the domestic arts. Now my other grandma, Mattie, is a different story. 

Dad says he reached adulthood because of the local pizza buffet. I’ve watched her cook. The family talk is that she can burn a boiled egg. But she had a tree house built in her backyard for us and brings us sandwiches. So, she is cool even if she can’t cook.”

 
“It sounds like you focus on people’s strong points. That’s a good trait to have. I suspect our time here is nearly done. 

The wind is picking up and one way or another, we are going to leave here.”

 
Dorp was correct. The wind blew them across the fairgrounds and into the shirt of a man from Alabama who was there visiting his brother. They all attended the fair together and said their goodbyes there. The whole troupe of them, including Sam and Dorp, were soon in the car and on their way to Childersburg, Alabama.